From the West Village to Fort Greene, With Few Regrets
This weekend’s real estate section in the Times has a story that’s likely to resonate with many ex-Manhattanites who’ve moved to Brooklyn and find the living across the East River a whole lot easier. The article is about Hali Lee and Peter von Ziegesar, a couple with three kids who uprooted from the West Village,…
This weekend’s real estate section in the Times has a story that’s likely to resonate with many ex-Manhattanites who’ve moved to Brooklyn and find the living across the East River a whole lot easier. The article is about Hali Lee and Peter von Ziegesar, a couple with three kids who uprooted from the West Village, where they’d lived for 15 years, to Fort Greene. The pair bought a house (a former crack den, actually) on South Portland Avenue in late ’05 and say that while they miss a few things about the city (chief among them their old proximity to the Village Community School on West 10th Street, which their kids still attend), Brooklyn has presented a number of quality-of-life advantages. The perks, according to Ms. Lee, include an environment that doesn’t feel like a high-end mall, as the Village did; a space where their brood’s noise doesn’t disturb the neighbors; their new borough’s down-to-earth population (There are mixed-race couples, and black people here who aren’t nannies); and the fact that their kids can now go play on the sidewalk and in the backyard.
In a House, You Can Make All the Noise You Want [NY Times]
Photo by lunalaguna.
“I found that comment more indicative of the reason why a lot of people move to Brooklyn. At least people who are open minded and enjoy diversity.”
Are republicans and Bush supporters welcome in diversity-approving Brooklyn?
11:00….almost ALL my neighbors are young 30’s who own 3 million dollar homes.
It’s not like finding a needle in a haystack.
Every time you all complain about how this house and that house is overpriced, you need to think about these people.
Lots of people are working hard right now trying to get a step up the ladder.
Meanwhile you’re sitting here commenting on brownstoner asking why so many people have so much money.
See any irony in that?
“My problem is the NYTimes and their unapologetic upper-middle or rich class perspective on this city – all their Style, Real Estate, Travel,etc articles can make my stomach churn. Same old articles week after week, year after year.”
True, dat. Last week is was the 30-year-old couple (she’s ‘writing her first screenplay’) who just bought a $4mn townhouse in London. Like the Ft. Greene couple, they too had a brush with souless high-rise living, in Hong Kong. $4mn can usually cure the souless-housing disease.
I agree that these people are idiots for sharing their story with the NYT. Why bother? It just invites hateful comments from most people who read it, and I find it an invasion of privacy. You KNOW the journalist was salivating as soon as Ms. Lee uttered the “black people who aren’t nannies” comment.
First of all, this thread is making me a little sick. Some of you have some serious low self esteem to be disecting a seemingly nice family who moved to Brooklyn. Really pathetic.
And secondly, I didn’t find the black comment in any way racist or disturbing. I did find it factual, however. How many black people really do own or rent in the West Village. I’d say next to none.
I found that comment more indicative of the reason why a lot of people move to Brooklyn. At least people who are open minded and enjoy diversity.
Which is, quite frankly, a lot more than I can say for most of you on here.
10:45am – it depends on how much better the private school is. No one wants to send their kid to a failing public school, or a dangerous one, but given the choice, I far prefer a good elementary public school education for my kids than the privileged one that you get at NYC privates.
However, I know I’m the beneficiary of parents who, as 10:23 pointed out, moved into those neighborhoods without the option of going private and had to improve the schools so that the following generation of parents could come in to an already good school. Hopefully, Fort Greene is also attracting families who need to use the public schools and will work to make them excellent. (Perhaps they are already, sorry I don’t know much about the zoned public schools there except for the fact that so many people seem to attend schools in other neighborhoods.)
Uh, doesn’t the article say they SOLD their Village co-op for $1.9? Why does anyone care where they got their money? It’s not your business.
Most of these posts are petty, petty, petty. You should thank these people for opening their lives up and giving you something to read on Sunday morning. sheesh.
10:31 again. Well, I’m fine if someone says, “we’re so lucky to have inherited some money/found a finger in my burger and sued McDonals” or whatever. But this article seemed to go out of the way to stress the “salt of the earth” aspect of this family. They seem nice! But if you’re going to point out that they work in creative, non-paying fields or that she is from Midwest (NYT code for ‘wokring class’), etc, you need to talk about the money.
You can say “it’s NEW YORK CITY” but I’m saying it’s JOURNALISM. Tell me the whole story. I think you have to point out how you do it. Because it’s the real estate section and I wanna know HOW DO YOU DO THAT? I want to do that!